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Topic: Late Late Late removal (Read 1473 times)

I got a call a few days ago for a colony removal from a church building in North Eastern, NC. They are replacing some wood and painting the building. Not willing to wait till spring to get the bees out and the work done. So I went out there and met with the carpenter. He set scaffolding up for me. The bees were in the eave box on the corner of the church roof, about 15 feet up. I removed the boards from the front and bottom of the eave to access the hive. What a mess. The comb was packed in so tightly that it was difficult to cut out large enough pieces to put in frames. In the end, I only found about 3 frames worth of brood comb. There were young larvae, so I know they had a queen in there. Never saw her. Probably got vacced.

I filled an ice chest with about 50 pounds of honey comb. I also put honey comb in 6 medium frames. When we got to the ground, I dumped the bucket o' bees into the deep, and added the medium box with honey. Watch them fan for a while as strays went into the box. Put them in the truck, and headed to the house. When we got home, I put them in the yard and added a baited SHB trap to the deep. Crossing fingers to see if they will make it. I probably shouldn't have left honey in there with them.

Opinions? Should I go out today and remove the honey super for a few days to let them adjust?

The honey super has done any dripping it may do. Now watch it daily for SHB. If they don't take over, leave it on.

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"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

Thanks for the advice, iddee. I'll get in there in a little while and see how things look. If I see a swarm of SHB, I will remove the super and see if the bees can handle it. Do you know of any immediate remedy for the SHB? I have the bait trap in there now.

Full sun and bees in all the hive. Remove any frames the bees cannot cover even if it means going to a 5 frame nuc box.

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"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

I checked the hive yesterday to make sure all was well. Alas, the queen did not make it. Either she hid in a dark corner and escaped me, or she got vacced and didn't survive. If that is the case, she will be the first queen that didn't survive this vac we made. Either way, no queen. They are building out one queen cell.

So, the bad news is I was unable to save the genetics. I'm pretty sure it's too late for me to wait a couple of weeks for a new queen to hatch out and start laying. The good news is, I have a brand new queen that needs a colony. I had swarm cells a few weeks ago in a strong hive that was out of room. I removed two brood frames that had swarm cells with bees on them, and one honey/pollen frame, and put them in their own deep. The parent colony did not swarm, and the new queen has begun laying in the smaller colony.

So, I think the smart thing to do will be to do a newspaper combine. Should I put the smaller colony with the queen on top, or bottom???

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

Not sure it matters either, but I usually try to put the weaker colony on top. My rationale is that if the weaker colony is on the bottom, the stronger colony will move down quicker through the weaker colony to get to the entrance. If the weaker colony is on top, the need for the entrance is not forcing the stronger colony into the weaker colony as fast and there is more time to accept. If nothing else, it appeases me :-)

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